The first couple of weeks after the accident, my mom and aunt had stayed in San Diego helping Shane and me with the kids. They’d made sure everyone was fed, and someone was always with Gunner at the hospital, and a million different other things that we hadn’t had the energy to deal with. But they had lives in Oregon, and once they’d left, it had been up to us to get the kids back to some kind of normalcy.
Normal. I wasn’t even sure what that meant anymore.
Shane had been on bereavement leave for a little over a week and had used some time he’d had saved up for another week after that, but he’d had to go back to work. He didn’t have the luxury of wallowing or making sure his kids were okay before he had to start leaving the house every day, all day.
So I’d been there.
I’d sent some of my clients to other designers that I trusted and had taken over a life that wasn’t really mine. I cared for children that I loved more than myself, gave up the small semblance of a life I’d had before, and became a stand-in. And I didn’t regret it. Not for a second.
But it was times like yesterday—when Shane had called me to tell me that I wouldn’t be “needed” because his foster mom was in town—that I remembered how little power I had when it came to the kids.
It killed me.
“I’ll take her up to bed,” Shane said suddenly, coming up behind where we were sitting.
“She’s fine where she is,” I replied without looking at him. I could feel my chest growing tight as I imagined how yesterday must have gone. Sage couldn’t have gotten much sleep if she was tired enough to fall asleep over the giddy screams of her brothers.
“She’s getting too big for you to carry around—”
“She’s fine.”
Aunt Ellie looked between us, her brows furrowed, before standing up. “I’m going to check on Gunner.”
I wished Shane would just walk away while my emotions were so close to the surface, but of course, he didn’t.
“Sorry I snapped at you,” Shane murmured, sitting down in the vacated spot next to me.
“It’s fine.”
“You’re just here a lot. I know you had your own life before this—”
I snorted before I could stop myself, cutting off his words. I’d barely had a life. I’d been with his wife every single day he wasn’t.
“—but we need to talk,” he finished.
“About what?” I asked, stomach turning.
“Deployment’s coming up,” he said quietly, glancing down at Sage to make sure she was still asleep.
“I thought you were going to try and get out of it?” I hissed back in surprise, looking over to find Gavin peeing in the grass. Ugh.
“I can’t, Katie,” he replied softly, the old endearment making me jolt. “I can’t send my guys without me.”
“So you’re just going to leave your kids here instead?”
“You don’t understand—”
“Nope, I don’t.”
I finally turned to look at him, and I wanted to slap the determined look off his face, but I didn’t have a chance to say anything else.
“Look who’s awake!” Aunt Ellie called cheerfully, carrying Gunner out the back door. Oh my God, had he grown in the day I hadn’t seen him? He looked bigger.
“Sage, wake up, baby,” I called, jostling her a little on my lap. “Brother’s awake. It’s time to do cake.”
She woke with a jerk, the same way she’d been waking up for the past year, and looked around in confusion.
“Cake time, princess,” Shane told her with a small smile, climbing to his feet.
When we got to the patio table, I stole Gunner from my aunt.
“Look at you, big boy,” I said quietly as he stuffed his face into my neck. “Is it your birthday?”
He pulled away and smiled up at me, and my heart stuttered.
“When did the top tooth come in?” I asked Shane, glancing over to find him staring at us.
“I noticed it last night.”
“Shit, I missed it,” I whispered, smiling at Gunner. “Look at that chomper, dude, you’re going to be asking for steak soon.”
“I think we have time before that happens,” Shane joked, scooting around me with a hand at my back so he could get to the table.
I closed my eyes against the small touch. It was times like these, simple conversations when he used the word we, that I had to steel myself against. As much as I loved them, and as much as I took care of them—those children were not mine. I had to remember that.
* * *
I left the house at three, just like Shane had asked me to.
I knew he was having a hard day, and frankly I was, too. I didn’t want to get into it with him.
We’d had a sort of uneasy truce going on for the past year. While Shane was good with daddy stuff, he knew his limits, and I liked to think that he knew how much he relied on me even though he’d never acknowledged it. I wasn’t the babysitter—our roles weren’t that simple.
I was there while he worked, that was a given, but I’d also stayed over all night when Keller and Sage had a stomach bug. We ate dinner together as a family at least once a week, and a few times we’d even taken the kids on day trips to the zoo and the beach.
I knew I wasn’t his favorite person—that had become pretty clear when Rachel was alive and I’d been completely ignored. Hell, I’d known it the first time I brought Rachel home with me from school and he’d wooed her while acting as if I didn’t exist. The friendship we’d formed as kids had deteriorated without my knowledge, and all I’d been left with was a stranger who ended up married to my best friend.
But over the past year, we’d become partners of a sort, taking care of the kids, and I figured that was probably the closest we’d ever get to being friends again.
I dreaded the day that he found someone new, which he eventually would. As the years went on, he’d want someone to spend his life with, and I knew that when that day came, I would no longer be needed.
I shook my head and stripped out of the jeans I’d been wearing. I wanted to be at the house with the kids, but I forced myself not to think of how fussy and tired they probably were. They were fine with Shane and my aunt. I just had to learn to let go a little.
A few hours later, as I was bingeing on episodes of Call the Midwife on Netflix, my phone started ringing next to me on the bed.
“Hello?” I answered around the large bite of chocolate in my mouth.
“Hey, sis,” my aunt said with a laugh. I loved how my family called me “sis.” It reminded me of when I was a kid and things were so much simpler.
“Hey, how are the kiddos doing?”
“They’re all down for the night,” she answered with a sigh. “And I’m pooped.”
“I bet. Where’s Shane?”
“Well, that’s what I was calling about.”
I sat up in bed and brushed the chocolate crumbs off my chest. “What’s going on?”
“He left, Katie, and I’m not sure where he was going.”
“He’s a big boy, Aunt Ellie, I’m sure he’s fine.”
“No, no, I know that,” she replied before going quiet. I could picture her so clearly in my mind, biting at the cuticles on her nails anytime she was worried.
“What do you need me to do?” I asked finally, standing up and grabbing a pair of pants from the floor.
“Do you know where he’d go?” she asked. “He said he wouldn’t be back until the morning.”
Shit.
“I have a pretty good idea,” I mumbled back, putting the phone on speaker so I could get my bra on. “I’ll see if I can find him and call you back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Isn’t that why you called me?”
“Well…yes.”
“Then, yeah. If you’re worried, then I’ll check on him.”
We hung up a few minutes later, and I was on my way downtown shortly after that. I had a pretty good idea where he was, and the closer I got to the hotel,
the more nervous I became.
Rachel and Shane had a silly tradition to meet up after every deployment at a certain hotel downtown. Before they got back to daily life, with kids and bills and taking out the garbage, they’d take one night just for themselves. And every year, I’d keep the kids for the night while they met up and had marathon sex with no interruptions.
The first time it happened and Rachel had come home bragging about it, I’d felt sick to my stomach. I knew they were having sex. They were married and had Sage by then, but knowing it and hearing the details were two very different things, and that had been the first time I’d been thankful that Rachel ignored me while Shane was home.
I’d needed to get my head on straight. They were married. Married. And I was just the wife’s best friend. He might have been my friend first, but by that time he definitely wasn’t my friend any longer. I had no right to feel anything about their sexcapades, and it had been ridiculous that I had.
I’d overcome my jealousy and hurt feelings years ago, but parking in the garage to their hotel had me fighting that same sick feeling in my stomach. I didn’t belong there, and I so badly wanted to turn around and go back home.
I got Shane’s room number from the front desk—not very safe of them to give information like that out—and strode toward the elevator.
He was going to be pissed. No doubt about it.
* * *
“The fuck are you doing here?” Shane growled as he threw open the door I’d been knocking on for a solid five minutes. I hadn’t driven all the way down there for him to ignore me.
“I was in the neighborhood…” I answered, falling back into the awkward teenager I’d been trying to leave behind me for years.
“Kids okay?” he asked, walking across the room and pouring what looked like Jack Daniel’s into one of the hotel coffee mugs.
“Aunt Ellie said they’re already asleep.”
“She called you?”
“Yep.”
“I told her I’d be home in the morning.”
“She worries.”
“As you can see, I’m fine.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” I replied, finally stepping into the room and letting the door swing closed behind me. “Want to share?” I asked, nodding to the bottle on the table.
“Not especially.”
“Will you share?”
“I guess.”
I sat on the edge of the bed as he poured me a mug of whiskey and nodded my thanks as he handed it over. Crap, I hated the smell of whiskey. Ever since Rachel and I had gotten wasted on some bottom-shelf shit at our first party in college, I smelled it and was reminded of whiskey-tinged vomit coming out my nose.
“You couldn’t have splurged on the good stuff, huh?” I asked, taking a small sip.
His startled laugh made me smile, but I didn’t look at him as he landed on the bed next to me with a small bounce.
“Figured it didn’t matter if I was just using it to get shitty.”
“That’s your plan for the night?” I asked, eyeballing the mostly empty bottle as I felt my limbs begin to heat. Shit, it had been so long since I’d had a buzz that the feeling was almost euphoric.
“Get shitfaced, jack off, and sleep,” he announced with a smirk as my eyes shot to his face. “Aw, look at you. Still blushing at the mention of masturbating.”
“You’re drunk,” I spat back, finishing my whiskey and jumping to my feet. I was not talking about masturbation with him, for fuck’s sake.
“That was the plan,” he replied lazily as I stumbled a little while grabbing my purse. “I gave you three shots, Katie. You’re not driving.” Without any warning, he grabbed the purse from my hands and threw it across the room.
“Don’t throw my shit! You probably broke my phone, you dick!” The words felt thick in my mouth, and I immediately regretted having anything to drink.
I didn’t want to be stuck in a room, drunk, with an equally drunk Shane. I loved everyone when I was drunk—I knew that about myself. I was emotional, and over-the-top, and everything that I tried so hard to suppress since I’d lost my best guyfriend in my freshman year of college. Maybe the hotel had another room to rent that wouldn’t completely obliterate my food budget for the week. Losing clients so I could take care of the kids had left me a little tight on cash.
“You’re not going anywhere. Don’t be stupid,” Shane grumbled, grabbing my arm as I tried to get to my purse.
“You’re stupid!”
“Mature, Katie.”
“Don’t call me Katie! Only my friends call me Katie, and you are not my friend,” I argued, scrambling to move past him.
“We should have been friends,” he said quietly into my ear as he caught me from behind and crossed my arms over my chest.
“We were friends, until you threw me away like garbage!” I yelled, kicking back at his legs.
“Stop fucking kicking me!”
“Let go!”
We wrestled for dominance, tripping our way around the room, and if my mind had been a little clearer, I would have stopped whatever was happening. But I was frustrated, and mad, and drunk, and wrestling around seemed like a completely rational decision then.
“You’re drunk!” he yelled, finally pinning me on the bed with my arms above my head. “You’re not getting into a fucking car!”
“You’re not the boss of me!”
“The fuck I’m not!”
“The fuck you are!”
“What?”
“Get. Off!” I bucked my hips and pulled at my arms, but it was no use. Even drunk, Shane was still ten times stronger.
“I just wanted to get drunk in peace,” he said, leaning down until we were nose-to-nose. “Why do you always have to step in like Florence fucking Nightingale? Huh?”
“Why do you always have to be such a douchebag and need saving?” I yelled back. We were breathing heavy, and I could feel sweat forming from our wrestling match.
“I don’t need you to save me. I never needed you to fucking save me,” he growled back, his eyes searching my face. “That’s what you never understood. You just kept pushing and pushing.”
I felt a lump forming in my throat as I thought about our past and turned my head to the side. I could feel tears forming in the corners of my eyes, and I couldn’t stop them from rolling down the sides of my face.
“Fuck you,” I whispered, my body finally going limp. “Fuck you, Shane.”
“Don’t fucking cry,” he ordered, his hands tightening on my wrists. “Don’t!”
I ignored him, keeping my eyes closed as I felt him breathing heavily above me. I was so embarrassed that I just wanted to disappear.
“Stop it!” he yelled, jostling the bed with his knees, as if shaking me would make any difference in the sob that had worked its way up my throat.
He let go of my arm then, but I left it limp above my head as I felt him grasp my jaw firmly in his long fingers and turn my face toward his. Maybe if I ignored him, he would lose interest in the fight.
“When you cry, your lips swell up,” he whispered, making my eyes finally pop open in surprise.
He was so much closer than I’d realized that my breath caught in my throat as he stared at my lips.
Then his mouth was on mine.
“Pushing, always fucking pushing,” he mumbled against my mouth before sucking my bottom lip between his and biting down hard enough to make me whimper.
He tugged at my lip with his teeth, and I felt my body heat in response.
“What are you doing?” I asked as his eyebrows furrowed.
“Fuck if I know.”
We were silent as we stared at each other. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that it was a bad idea, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from lifting my head and nipping his jaw hard with my teeth in retaliation.
“Harder,” he ordered, groaning as he grabbed the back of my head and pressed my mouth to his throat. “Do it hard.”
I followed his instruct
ions, biting and sucking on his neck like it was my job, and his hands shook as one held me against him and the other slid down the side of my throat and ripped the strap of my bra and cami down my shoulder. He tasted salty, and the stubble under his chin rasped across my tongue.
“Jesus,” Shane groaned as he leaned back on his knees and gazed at my breast that had popped free. “Your nipples are pierced.”
He reached out and flicked the hoop resting against my breast, and my hips jolted involuntarily off the bed as he pulled the other strap roughly down my shoulder so both breasts were on display.
His hands were on me then, pinching and pulling on my nipples as I writhed underneath him. His nostrils were flared and his jaw tense as I reached for the athletic shorts he was wearing and pulled at them, feeling his hard erection through the silky fabric.
He was off the bed in a flash, but before I could wonder if he was going to leave me, he was back and kneeling above me—naked except for the dog tags hanging around his neck.
I reached for him immediately, but he caught my hands with his and brought them back to my breasts as he scooted up my waist. It took me a second before I realized what he was doing, but the minute his skin met mine, I couldn’t help the small moan that left my mouth.
“Hold them there,” Shane mumbled, looking to where his cock was nestled between my breasts. “Squeeze me tight.”
I nodded dazedly as I pressed against the sides of my breasts, wrapping him up in my cleavage as he began to slide up and down. His fingers found my nipples and tortured them as he moved, and before long I was so frustrated that I let go of one breast to try to reach the waistband of my pants.
My face felt like it was on fire, and my head was cloudy as I tried to reach between Shane’s thighs. My arms weren’t long enough to go around him, and I needed to reach my clit. I knew it would only take a second before I went off like the Fourth of July, and then I figured he could go back to what he was doing.
I didn’t think of the way my hand would slide across his balls and the inside of his thighs as I moved, but a startled yelp and then a moan had me pausing with my hand halfway to the promised land.